Biodiesel is a clean renewable energy source, with glycerol being a main by-product in biodiesel production process. Effective utilization of glycerol can reduce the production cost of biodiesel and hence improve the development of biodiesel industry. Glycerol can be used as raw material to produce many valuable chemicals, among which production of acrolein is a promising route. Acrolein is an important chemical feedstock, which can be used to produce 1,3-propanediol, acrylic acid, methionine, pyridine, methyl pyridine, etc.
Currently acrolein is commercially produced mainly using the method of propylene oxidation. However, producing acrolein using glycerol as raw material is more promising in terms of cost and renewability. Research on glycerol dehydration to acrolein started about 100 years ago and has attracted much attention for about 20 years due to the development of biodiesel industry. However, the research on acrolein production from glycerol dehydration is still in a lab-scale study stage, with fast catalyst deactivation resulting from uneven temperature distribution being the main obstacle. The reported methods to improve the catalyst stability are basically catalyst modification and co-feeding with oxygen. Few studies on device improvement were found.